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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27646567">"Study" Buddy</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/murphallo/pseuds/murphallo'>murphallo</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Julie and The Phantoms (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Compliant, Canon Universe, Eventual Romance, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Headcanon, One Shot, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Romantic Fluff, Short One Shot</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 19:55:34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,693</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27646567</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/murphallo/pseuds/murphallo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>(A Juke one-shot short story) Julie is stressed about a calculus test and Luke has a plan to help her out.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Julie Molina &amp; Luke Patterson, Julie Molina/Luke Patterson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>221</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>"Study" Buddy</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>It was a pretty normal night for Luke. In life, when Alex and Reggie were out at night, Luke relished the time to let his mind wander. In death, however, his mind didn’t tend to do much wandering, because it stayed in one place: Julie’s room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tonight was no different. He strummed his acoustic guitar, fine-tuning lyrics, playing songs he’d written with a scary talented girl whose </span>
  <em>
    <span>bedroom light was still on? </span>
  </em>
  <span>He checked the time on the clock Julie had installed in the studio and saw that it was midnight. There had been times Julie had been so tired, she accidentally left the light on in her room, and on those nights, Luke, knowing she hated wasting energy, would just poof right in front of her light switch, look absolutely nowhere else because </span>
  <em>
    <span>boundaries</span>
  </em>
  <span>, turn her light off, and poof right back out. But tonight, he was still seeing her get up and walk around. </span>
  <em>
    <span>At midnight? </span>
  </em>
  <span>He had kinda forgotten how much sleep lifers needed, but he definitely knew she was usually asleep by now. Maybe she was reading or writing or listening to music or any number of things. She should be done by…</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>...1:30 am?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Usually, this wouldn’t be a huge problem, but they had a songwriting session planned for tomorrow and tired Julie wasn’t as fun to bounce ideas off of. Luke snuck another look at her room just in time to watch a fuzzy pen fly across the room and hit the wall. He found himself wishing </span>
  <em>
    <span>so</span>
  </em>
  <span> much that he could know what she was doing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So much he accidentally granted his own wish. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now, if he had poofed into the corner of her room or in front of her door, he could’ve easily poofed back out with her being none the wiser, but </span>
  <em>
    <span>no, </span>
  </em>
  <span>he accidentally wished himself right at the foot of Julie’s bed, inspiring her famous jump, before her shock turned into horror. “Luke!” she yelped, with a mouthful of Cheetos. She started frantically wiping her hands on her turquoise pajama shirt with a panda on it. “What are you doing here?!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Luke wanted to tell her she didn’t have to be embarrassed because of course, he still thought she looked pretty with Cheeto crumbs and her huge hair in a massive knot on her head, but the situation was already a little Norman Bates and he didn’t wanna add to it. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Cool guy: activated.</span>
  </em>
  <span> “Trying to see what could possibly be so worth wasting this much power.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She rolled her eyes, still embarrassed by her night look. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Get out of my room!” </span>
  </em>
  <span>she shout-whispered. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Promise to go to sleep after?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Julie softened slightly. As annoyed as she was, she couldn’t stay angry knowing he was worried. “It’s stupid calculus. I already missed one test and I have another one in about 8 hours now and I’m totally gonna fail. I’m falling behind enough as it is.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Luke checked her alarm clock. “Your class is at 10?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“10:30. I would probably understand but the band takes up so much of my time and I don’t have any time to study.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Oh, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Luke thought. He was never super into school; he didn’t even graduate before leaving for the band. But he knew Julie cared.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As if she could hear his thoughts, she looked up and reacted to his sad-looking face. “You know it’s not like that. I love the band more than anything, but if I fall behind in school, I can’t be in the band anymore. Which is why I’m so worried.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Let me see if I can help,” Luke said, inspiring what would’ve been a laugh from Julie if she hadn’t forced herself not to. After walking over next to her and looking at her notebook for exactly a second and a half, Luke simply declared “Nope.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s fine, Luke, honestly. I shouldn’t be up for longer than an hour.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Luke’s simple plan was already forming in his head. “You’re not gonna know anything if you’re dead tired. Take it from me! I’m actually dead and I don’t know anything!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She squinted and failed to suppress a smile. “That was a terrible joke.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’d be funnier if you were rested,” he countered, smiling back. “I’ll tell you what. I </span>
  <em>
    <span>promise </span>
  </em>
  <span>you’ll pass your test tomorrow.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you also promise to get out of my room?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>If </span>
  </em>
  <span>you go to sleep as soon as I leave.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After a moment of consideration, Julie conceded, sticking out a pinky for a pinky swear. Luke lightly laughed, both at the pinky swear and the fact that she never would have agreed this easily if she wasn’t aching for sleep anyway.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As Luke intertwined his pinkie with hers and they both leaned to seal the promise by kissing their own thumbs, Julie could only be hyper-aware of the closeness of his obnoxiously blue eyes, before they vanished.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Good morning class!” Mrs. Henson said, startling a very tired Julie from the stupor she’d entered in the four minutes since she’d sat down. “I trust you’ve all adequately studied for today’s test!”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Studied? Yes. Adequately? No. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>The teacher’s instructions were the same as they were every test, so Julie tuned them out, saving the energy for the actual test. She focused on the yellow and blue papers being handed back, differentiated by color to prevent cheating. </span>
  <em>
    <span>This is hopeless. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Luke had already broken his promise because Julie was about to fail this test spectacularly. As she carelessly filled in the bubbles, the letters and parentheses all became a swirl in her head as she mentally said goodbye to the band, her hopes, her dreams, her music, her-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sweet!” she suddenly heard above her, inspiring a particularly dramatic jump. “Multiple choice!” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Luke’s buttery smooth voice was never as comforting coming out of nowhere, no matter how many times he’d tried to get her used to it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She played off the jump by rubbing her leg. “Cramp,” she explained.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Pay attention, Ms. Molina,” the crotchety teacher said, annoyed by her outburst.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If they were in an ideal situation, Julie would unload all sorts of colorful thoughts on Luke, but all she could do was write </span>
  <em>
    <span>what are you doing here?! </span>
  </em>
  <span>on her test paper lightly so it could be easily erased.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Keeping my promise.” Just as she was about to ask what he was talking about she was suddenly hearing his voice from the front of the classroom. “The answer key is right on her desk. She’s honestly making this too easy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Suddenly, Julie realized what his plan was and began dramatically mouthing “NO!” at him over and over, grateful Mrs. Henson was so taken with her adult romance novel. When Luke looked confused, she just quickly wrote </span>
  <em>
    <span>thats cheating! </span>
  </em>
  <span>on her test. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“When are you ever gonna need calculus?” He was above her again, which she expected this time. “You studied so much you’re about to fall asleep on your test so I think you deserve an A!”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I can pass without cheating, thank you</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mmmhmm.” He leaned closer to get a look at her test, and Julie squirmed a bit in her seat, stress from the test and Luke being that close too much for her. And as if that wasn’t enough, he shifted her hair slightly to whisper “Number 3 is wrong.” Now he was just being unfair. “So is number 7 and 3 others that I’m seeing so far, just off the top of my head.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After a long mental groan, Julie simply wrote </span>
  <em>
    <span>fine. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Luke wasted no time and from the front of the room, Julie heard “Number 1: B! Number 2: D! Number 3: C!” Julie erased her answer and replaced it with the correct one. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They continued like this for the next 47 questions, taking brief intermissions for Luke’s purposely bad jokes, such as “Who in here loves calculus?! No one? Tough crowd!” When it was time to flip a page, Luke would simply knock something of the teacher’s over like a rude house cat and flip while she wasn’t looking. He was, and therefore Julie also was, simply enjoying this too much. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When her test was completed before anyone else, Julie carried it up to the teacher, trying to ignore the funny face Luke was making behind her. “Well done, Ms. Molina,” he mocked. “You’re showing real promise.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The teacher waved Julie back to her desk and she sat, and with one last wink, Luke was gone, the sting of him disappearing a little extra sharp for Julie today.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Luke! Luke! LUKE!” Julie called, running home from school the next day.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Woah!” he said after poofing out of the garage. “What’s going on?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>With the biggest smile on her face, she ran at him, laughing as he caught her, taking a second to bask in the feeling.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After a moment of happy shock, he finally spoke. “I assume you got the math test back?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Woah, what’d we miss?” Reggie asked, suddenly behind Luke, causing him and Julie to break their hug. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I helped her on her math test yesterday-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Cheated. We cheated. He helped me cheat.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Alex chimed in, “You shouldn’t-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But LOOK!” She held up her test to reveal a large, encircled letter “A-”. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“YES!” Alex yelled, suddenly cool with the cheating. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>After a genuine high five, Reggie suggested they celebrate by rehearsing for their gig the next day, suggesting Julie pick the song. They all began to walk, but Julie pulled Luke’s arm back for them to stay behind.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You had me get some wrong,” she said, still smiling. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” he said, scratching the back of his head. “You said you were slacking, so I didn’t want them to think you cheated. Or… </span>
  <em>
    <span>know </span>
  </em>
  <span>you cheated. So I had you miss 5 so you’d get a 90.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She smiled wider and teased “So you </span>
  <em>
    <span>are </span>
  </em>
  <span>good at math.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He looked at the ground as he defied nature by being, Julie assumed, the first person ever to blush despite not having blood. “Come on, they’re waiting for us,” he said, walking away, slowing down for her to walk next to him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neither smile broke for the rest of rehearsal. </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you for reading!! This is my first completed one shot fanfic and first fanfic I've ever posted period!! I hope it gets a little traction and y'all like it because I have a 6 Christmas Juke fic all finished and ready to go that I'm hoping to post during the holiday season if this does okay! Leave a comment and make sure to subscribe if that's something you'd be interested in :)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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